ECO-RECON TECHNIQUES
Wild Trails Campaign
A Joint Sierra Club/Native Forest Network Project

Trail Monitoring

Trail monitoring provides organizations and individuals a sense of what is occurring in the backcountry and a method to document degradation and damage to public lands. Trails receive impact from hikers, horses, and motorized vehicles. Motorized recreation often causes the most overall damage to the backcountry.

Basic Equipment

• Field Log
  
  
• optional: Hand-Held GPS
  
  
• Still Camera
  
  
• Video Camera
  
  
• Tape Measure

What to Look For

Human recreation, especially motorized, causes damage to vegetation, soil, riparian, and rock areas.

Vegetation

Vegetation damage begins when motor vehicles leave roads or trails. The vehicle's weight crushes tiny ground cover plants and the tires break and destroy grasses and shrubs. Tiny mosses and lichens are destroyed quickly by ATVs. The vehicles often rip the vegetation out of the ground completely. Plants, like all living organisms, suffer from carbon monoxide and other forms of motorized air pollution. In the west, sagebrush and sapling trees suffer much due to snowmobiles and ATVs. During winter, sagebrush and saplings often rise above the top layer of snow and snow machines chop off the tips. The compaction of snow by snowmobiles throughout the season crushes brush and small trees, leaving them deformed and often dead in spring. Snowmobiles running on thin or nonexistent snow cover can cause significant damage to soils and vegetation. ATVs and 4X4 trucks crush and kill plant life, leaving soil exposed to erosion. Deep wheel ruts become runoff channels, carrying soil into creeks where it destroys fish and insect habitat. Vegetation damage caused by motorized vehicles is usually obvious, but there are subtle cases as well.

Destruction of native vegetation opens the way for invasion by noxious weeds such as thistle, spotted knapweed, leafy spurge and dalamation toadflax. Trucks, snowmobiles and ATVs pick up seeds and whole plants and act as vectors for spread of noxious weeds. Learn to identify and document the presence of these weeds.

Soil

Soil damage begins after the vegetation has been removed. Repeated crossings compacts the exposed soil until it is hard and unfertile. During the wet periods, tires displace large amounts of earth, forming deep ruts and burns. Several seasons of soil damage increases erosion, exposing soil to invasion by noxious weeds.

Riparian

Riparian damage occurs along a natural watercourse. In the mountains, riparian damage occurs in streams and marshes and along lakes. Riparian areas are sensitive and host many types of plants and animals. When ATVs and trucks cross a stream, they push and chop dirt into the water, causing cloudy water and sediment built up and downstream dirt flow. Sediment build up in streams has been linked to increased water temperature and resultant degradation of wild fish habitat.

Rock

Rock and rock bed damage usually is visible with black rubber tire marks. Delicate stone is often broken up into small chunks by motor vehicles.

Trash

Unfortunately people on or in motor vehicles seem to be more inclined to leave their trash, especially beer cans, behind. You may find trash left at trailheads, in and around old fire rings, at random shooting ranges (where rubbish like cans and boxes are used for target practice and abandoned) and along trails and roads. If there is significant accumulation, first document and photograph the trash, then try to pack it out.

The wild individuals living in the ecosystem suffer the most. In the West, motorized recreation threatens the natural way of life for grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, elk, and many other species. The stressful combination of extreme noise, air pollution and traffic harasses the animals. Wilderness and wild beings deserve respect and protection. The eco-systems and habitats are fragile and extremely important to the overall condition of Earth. Every time machines damage natural habitat, the ecosystem loses some of its integrity.

Reporting

To report a case of damage, it is best to record it in a field log according to the damage code (see codes on Photo/Damage/Impact form). Once the code is recorded, determine a location, as accurate as possible, or record a GPS point. Once the point is recorded, write a description of the damage. If photographing the damage, record information according to the photo log (see photo documentation form). If taking pictures of deep ruts, place the ruler in the picture to show measurements. After returning from the field, organize notes and photos and prepare them according to your specific project. The use of information depends upon the objectives of the project.

When walking the trails go slow and observe everything around you. This is what is referred to as the "observation mindset". Conducting Eco-Recon is as much about the self as it is about the Earth.

Questions/Comments? Contact Phil Knight, NFN at (406) 586-3885 or pknight@wildrockies.org